Chapter 9
The revelation hung in the cold air of the foundry,
chilling Grace to her very core as she looked at Brooke's calm demeanor.
Ethan didn't flinch,
his eyes locked onto his former fiancé with a gaze that could have cut through the steel beams above them.
"My father is dead,"
Ethan said,
each word measured and heavy,
"and his designs died with him in the boardroom today."
Brooke laughed,
a short,
hollow sound that bounced off the thousands of blinking server blades surrounding them.
"Your father didn't build designs,
Ethan,"
she countered,
stepping closer to the edge of the terminal platform,
"he built ecosystems."
"This facility doesn't just manage the Whitmore assets,"
she continued,
her eyes shifting over to Grace with a look of calculating pity,
"it manages the human variables that the main network couldn't predict."
Grace felt a sudden surge of anger,
stepping out from behind Ethan's protective frame to face Brooke directly.
"We are not variables,"
Grace said,
her voice ringing with a strength that surprised even herself,
"and we are no longer part of your sick little game."
Brooke sighed,
shaking her head as if dealing with a stubborn child who refused to understand a simple lesson.
"You still think this is about an engagement contract,"
Brooke murmured,
looking back at the glowing monitor behind her,
"you still think this is just about keeping Ethan under control."
She tapped a single key on the console,
and the massive screen split into dozens of active data feeds.
Grace gasped softly as she recognized the names and faces appearing on the screen before her.
Her mother's medical profile was there,
but it wasn't just a simple patient history from the local hospital.
It was a comprehensive timeline stretching back over fifteen years,
documenting every treatment,
every doctor's visit,
and every single financial transaction.
Beside it was Grace's own file,
detailing her childhood,
her school records,
and every job she had ever taken before arriving at Whitmore Tower.
"You weren't chosen because you were a cleaner,
Grace,"
Brooke said,
her voice dropping to a sharp,
triumphant whisper,
"you were brought to that tower because your family has been a controlled asset of this company for two decades."
Ethan stepped forward,
his fist clenching as he grabbed the edge of the terminal desk,
forcing Brooke to step back.
"Explain,"
he demanded,
the sheer authority in his tone making the servers seem to hum a little louder in response.
Brooke pointed to a section of the archive labeled 'Project Genesis',
where a dated signature sat at the bottom of the screen.
It was the signature of Grace's father,
a man Grace had been told died in a simple workplace accident when she was a little girl.
But the document before them wasn't an accident report;
it was a non-disclosure agreement and a lifelong research participation contract.
"Your father didn't just work for Whitmore,"
Brooke revealed,
watching Grace's face turn completely pale under the harsh fluorescent lights,
"he was the lead architect who designed the very first behavioral compliance algorithms."
The room seemed to spin around Grace as the truth hit her like a physical blow,
shattering everything she thought she knew about her own life.
May you like
She wasn't an outsider who accidentally stumbled into Ethan's world;
she was the daughter of the man who had built the prison in the first place.
